It’s all over but the inauguration. Barack Obama has swept to victory, and Sarah Palin can go back to moose hunting in Alaska. It was an election that broke all kinds of barriers, and few of us will soon forget it. Here’s one barrier smashed you may not have noticed: Online video finally went mainstream, thanks to Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, and, of course, Sarah Palin.
You had to be living in a cave somewhere south of where Osama Bin Laden is hiding not to know that one of the high points of Election 2008 was the weekly spoof-fest served up by SNL that featured zingers so dead-on that they became watercooler fodder from coast to coast. Ratings for the 33-year-old show jumped by 76 percent this year, to 9.8 million late-night comedy watchers. But folks who didn’t [or couldn’t] stay up that late could watch the bits on NBC.com, Hulu, or any number of places where videos can be ogled online.
That audience could finally turn online video into a big business. Until now, the 146 million or so online video viewers recorded by comScore Media Metrix each month have been mostly the under-30 crowd drawn to consumer-generated dreck, shorter professional stuff, and the odd sitcom or two. That will change now, I am willing to wager, with old fogies like me developing a taste for TV shows at the click of a mouse. For me, the light bulb went on when NBC.com put a promo for the Christian Slater show My Own Worst Enemy on the same page as SNL highlights from the week before.
What online video has needed from its beginning is a major cultural event that would focus attention on the abundance of TV shows — and all kinds of other material — available online. The last…